Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. "There may come a time when I speak on that," Gore says, "but it's not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do." Gore sighs. "In our system, there's no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution."

Later, I put the question of Gore's views on the matter to David Boies, his lawyer in the Florida-recount battle. "He thought the court's ruling was wrong and obviously political," Boies says. So he considers the election stolen? "I think he does---and he's right."

I guess a prudent person treads carefully. How maddening, though! To hear someone tiptoe so cautiously, so slowly, while it all continues, all the carnage, all the madness, all the BULLSHIT, all the damage, all the death!!!!!

Unfortunately, Al did not have another card to play in 2000. Sandra Day will be remembered as the person who enabled this dysfunctional and dangerous administration. We now know what happens when ignorance and incompetence are combined with arrogance and paranoia.

Unfortunately, Al did not have another card to play in 2000. Sandra Day was the person who enabled this dysfunctional and dangerous administration. We now know what happens when ignorance and incompetence are combined with arrogance and paranoia.

#1 - I would read his statement to mean that he feels the next step is violent revolution and he is not ready to initiate that step yet. We will continue to wallow, as you say, in the carnage, madness, bullshit, death, etc. until we are ready to take the next step. Nothing will or can happen to change things for the better until then.

Pretty depressing but similar thoughts and feelings have gelling in my head for some time now. I just keep hoping for and searching for another way out.

Truth Seeker, how right you are. S.D.O'Connor will go down in history (the REAL history, if and when it ever gets written) as the woman who did more damage to democracy than any other. And people are so timid about saying it, as if her status as a "woman" on the bench puts her above reproach.

Give me a break. There was probably a fix, but Al Gore wasn't in on it. He maybe could have done better (and no doubt is kicking himself), but I don't see him playing the role of "lackey." At that time there was many things to consider, and it was a confusing and tense time. I wish Al Gore would run again, and win. He would be a great president, maybe even better than Clinton.

Let's make something really clear so that it doesn't keep getting repeated:

Al Gore didn't win his homestate because Tennessee is one of the most racist states in the nation and a majority of citizens who voted didn't like the fact that Gore's campaign manager was a Black woman (Donna Brazile). So quit repeating the myth about the homestate! Tennessee sucks and I wouldn't have been proud to have won it considering how bad it is. By not winning the state it showed that he wasn't attracting the racists and bigots.

I've been to Tennessee and I've seen the blatant racism, mostly against Blacks. Try visiting Memphis or Nashville sometime. The whites are mostly moronic and backward. So, again, drop the bullshit about the "homestate."

The words "violent revolution" couldn't carry a clearer message. The message is, "I had to choose between accepting the Supreme Court decision or encouraging my supporters to claim a stolen election through violence." Whether that was the real choice he faced or not, Gore would never have chosen those words without having believed the election was in fact stolen. So the answer must be "yes."

But saying the Supreme Court stole it, while not incorrect, is only part of the story. It never would have come to that if the vote hadn't been rigged. The same techniques which the Republicans used to steal the 2004 election were already in use in 2000...flipped votes, under-allocation of voting machines to minority districts, illegal removal of eligible voters from the rolls, throwing out of legally cast ballots, intimidation of voters, dirty tricks. This is the real story of the 2000 election, because once they got away with everything, it was a no-brainer to repeat them in 2004 (with a few improvements).

Al Gore had a third choice in 2001, between accepting Bush's inauguration and calling for a violent revolution. He could have made a public speech; if I had written it for him it would have begun this way:

"Honest elections are the right and privilege of every voter...Republican, Democrat, and Independent. I'd rather that this speech have been delivered by someone else, because it will appear to many that I'm speaking out of wounded self-interest. I will be called a sore loser, a poor sport, and a disloyal American for what I'm about to say.

The election was fraudulent. George W. Bush is not entitled to take office, any more than a burglar is entitled to stolen property. The votes weren't stolen from me, mind you...they were stolen from the American people, who deserve to have them back."

Etc., etc. If Gore had done this, Bush would still have been inaugurated and Gore would have been excoriated as a sore loser, poor sport, disloyal American, etc. But the 2004 election couldn't have been stolen, because Gore's words would still have lingered in the minds of his supporters. The DNC would not have been able to ignore evidence of fraud in 2004 (as it did, and as most prominent Democrats continue to do), because it would have been a case of "Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me."

In other words, Al Gore was more afraid of ending his own political career, and facing the "slings and arrows of outrageous political fortune (and by so doing end them)..." than he was willing to stand up for a higher purpose. Gore's Hamlet moment came and went without a soliloquy, and the American people, and our political system, have suffered for 5-1/2 years because of Gore's weakness.

If the election was not stolen from Al Gore in 2000, then he should shut up about it already, let it die, and come back and run in 2008 or 2012.

If the election was in fact stolen from him, he should be ashamed of himself for taking six years to get to the point where he has to "frame it more carefully".

Had an election been stolen from George Washington, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, or Teddy Roosevelt, do you think they would have sat by silently, or do you think they would have made a stand for American democracy at whatever cost to their own political fortune?

Twenty seven thousand largely African-American votes in Duval County were never counted and Gore raised not a peep about that, and most of those votes were his! One hundred seventy five thousand largely African-American votes were thrown away in Cleveland in 2004, and Gore says nothing. If he were to run again in 2008, do you think that his opponents will be shamed into playing by the rules and counting all the votes accurately this time? Then ask yourself if he cannot stand up to people who hijack democracy right here in the United States, what will he do when confronted by a bellicose foreign leader abroad?

Gore is out of politics, and rightly so. He proved in 2000 that he does best from the sidelines. Let him stay there in 2008.

Well said, #13. However, I would add that I think Mr. Gore may be saying that in every case the supreme court decides, not just election 2000, if the supreme court makes a wrong decision the next step is violent revolution.

I, personally, am there. Although I have never committed a violent act. In my thoughts I am there as never before. I feel myself in the shoes of Patrick Henry fighting for our country. I feel myself in the shoes of Benjamin Franklin fighting for our country. I have said to my spouse more than once that I am ready to defend our country. Not by fighting in unjust wars and killing innocent people, no I am ready to fight here to renew our ideals. I weep for our country.

Gore is, despite what critics have said, a man of principle. That does not mean he is necessarily courageous nor does it mean he is totally consistent. But he does strive to stay on course, and he does have a strenght that is also his weakness--he believes in the US System of government of which he is descendant and creature. Critics are half-right to say he is no different from many an inbred Washington politico. He has certainly been raised in the ethos of Washington like many others of his generation. And he was around the power of the Kennedy's and Johnson's during his formative years, not to mention his own Dad the Senator from Tennessee.

I think he has carried that legacy self-consciously and has had to reconcile it with the more troubled conditions of our time. He wants to believe, and he wants to make it right. He sees it all in the long view of legacy--and that includes all the political history he knows from Washington to the present.

I am not surprised by his self-conscious selection of words for what most of us would regard as a simpler question of stolen vs not stolen. He feels bound to be careful as a public figure because he knows public figures are the folks who get tagged with historical credit or blame, whether they deserve it or not. Gore wants to be on the "good side" but he is hyper about the pitfalls. He's encountered enough of them to be skittish.

Paul Revere - re: #12 - You're using a very broad brush to paint an entire population, based on your interaction with a very small percentage of the people who live here. Although your experiences in Tennessee were obviously not of the pleasant variety, don't judge all of us by the ones you encountered. It sounds like there is a side of Tennessee that you missed entirely, and that's a real shame.

The majority of the people I know who voted for George W. Bush voted for him because they were extremely angry at Bill Clinton, and at Al Gore by association, for "immoral conduct". Adultery is still HUGE on the sin meter here - if the locals had their way, adulterers would be publicly stoned. And they were NOT HAPPY AT ALL that the words "oral sex" appeared on the front pages of newspapers - it's one of those things that is never discussed in polite company.

Our southern culture is deeply rooted in Christianity - I assume the rest of the country knows this, but you can't know the full impact until you've lived it. (Stories, oh yes, I have LOTS of stories) And I know it's supposed to be illegal because of the constraints placed by tax exemptions, but the preachers and churches had EVERYTHING to do with who won and who lost the state of Tennessee. Bill Clinton had become the symbol for all that is wicked in our government - and Christians here were determined to take it back in the name of God.

Here in the south, Bush was successfully painted as a "man of God". And in an area that plays gospel music over the speakers in grocery stores and Walmart, where one of the first things people ask when they meet you is "Where do you go to church?", and where it's a GIVEN that the Ten Commandments will be posted in public places, ESPECIALLY in the public schools, George W. Bush was exactly the kind of person they were looking for. They believed he'd bring mandatory prayer back into the schools, make abortion illegal, and protect their marriages by making sure homosexuals couldn't legally join in marriage or civil unions.

Though I won't disagree that there is a good deal of racism here in Tennessee - with Biblical basis, according to certain preachers - that is NOT what cost Al Gore the election here.

Trust me, I've dealt with this my entire life. The RRR (Radical Religious Right) is MUCH more powerful and outspoken than the KKK in Tennessee.

BTW, I don't know where you went in Nashville, but it sounds like you may have hit during "Fanfare" or something, or just wound up in the wrong areas at the wrong time. There are alternatives to the redneck scene - let me know next time you go, I'll see what I can find out for you. (Someone who lives closer to Nashville can tell you more, I don't get there as often as I'd like)

And if you ever come through this way again, visit The Farm in Summertown (www.thefarm.org). If you go to work as an apprentice in the Ecovillage, you can stay there for a month or more. Details are on the website.

Bush is violently over throwing our country over there,
so he doesn't have to violently over throw us over here...
except for that 9/11 part...
so far...
oh, and in the near future, those detention camps
dick Cheney's Hellsaburpin are building for us.

Somehow I knew my friend Kestrel would defend her home state (as a "volunteer" spokesperson).

The RRR (radical religious right) is indeed powerful in the Bible Belt. But it's also a huge factor in rural areas of Northern states...Ohio being the best example, but only one. The fact that Bush got close enough in Ohio to steal the state in 2004 can be attributed to a shotgun marriage of religion and politics that enabled Bush to present himself as an avenging archangel of Clinton's sins, sent by God to cleanse a diseased American culture.

People actually believe this dopey shit. American culture is diseased, all right, but that's the fault of television, corporate welfare, low educational standards, worship of celebrities as role-models, two-income families that rob children of leadership,
and a general anti-intellectual bias nationwide. Politicians didn't create the problem...they've just pretended it isn't one, and George W. Bush is the ultimate by-product of our loss of standards.

If God gave us Bush, as the RRR believes, then God is a fool. God can't be a fool, but the RRR is.

As someone who volunteered on many election camaigns when I lived in Florida, I can say that Al Gore did all he coud to save democracy in America short of starting a civil war. He has it exactly right. The real blame belongs with the Bush election stealers who shredded both Florida law and the U.S. constitution to thwart the will of the people and steal the 2000 election. More blame belongs with the pathetic leadership of the democrats in Congress and at the Democratic party. They abandoned Al Gore and hid in their cushy, ivory, Washington towers in 2000 and since and allowed Bush to wreek his havoc much in the way the German parliment allowed Hitler to wreek his madness on Germany and the world in the 1930's. I fear that istory is oce agai repeating itself.

Wow, KBE!
With all due respect, I know your comments were meant as a heartfelt DEFENSE of Tennessee, but I gotta say your post kinda made me laugh! (don't be pissed, now!)

I'm glad to know all that. If I ever go to Tennessee again, I'll be sure to keep my mouth shut! I mean, damn!
I may not be an adulterer but I don't think I'd last an hour there before they stoned me as a godless heathen!!

I have a huge amount of respect for Al Gore, and if allowed to be Al Gore, I believe he would be the best candidate the Democrats could offer in 2008. H ehas Washington experience and he has been out of the beltway for all of the horrendous years since 2001.

One thing I know about Al Gore is that he does not choose his words lightly, including "violent revolution." No, I do not think those words peculiar in the least.

We are living in a failed Democracy, from which fascism, albeit uniquely American, is budding rapidly.

It always strikes me as odd that Americans always want to criticize leaders, of both parties, when we ought to be taking repsonsibility for the failed state in which we live. How many of us would have flown into the streets, ready for revolution if Gore had gone along with Boxer and contested the 2000 election? I cannot honestly say that I would have.

But I can say this, in complete honesty and with a commitment I do not believe I have ever felt before:

I am ready now, to do whatever it takes, and I do mean, WHATEVER!

I have marched, protested, emailed my fingers off, called elected officials until I am sick of them all, damn near; I have signed petitiions, worked to get out the vote, raised money and talked 'til I am blue in the face about the nightmare in which we find ourselves.

Anyone who still believes that they have anything to lose is a fool. Our Declaration of Independence not only gives us the right, but the responsibility to resist tyranny with whatever means necessary.

I hope to God that we can find a way to win back our Democracy without violence, as I am against violence, especially against people.

Nevertheless, we are as responsible for this mess as anyone in Washington. I feel sure that it will be up to us to either turn things around or cause/allow the whole rotten system to collapse under the weight of its own corruption.

The targets of whatever revolution is to come will not only be the government, but its greedy, sociopathic, corporate puppetmasters as well. There is absolutely no difference between the Bush government and corporate America.

It is going to take whatever it takes. It is time to decide. Another election is just around the corner. What are we willing to do, if the now familiar signs of a stolen election are once again present? That is a question we need to be asking ourselves now, not after it happens.

As someone who volunteered on many election camaigns when I lived in Florida, I can say that Al Gore did all he coud to save democracy in America short of starting a civil war. He has it exactly right. The real blame belongs with the Bush election stealers who shredded both Florida law and the U.S. constitution to thwart the will of the people and steal the 2000 election. More blame belongs with the pathetic leadership of the democrats in Congress and at the Democratic party. They abandoned Al Gore and hid in their cushy, ivory, Washington towers in 2000 and since and allowed Bush to wreek his havoc much in the way the German parliment allowed Hitler to wreek his madness on Germany and the world in the 1930's. I fear that istory is oce agai repeating itself.

Whether you blame Gore or the Democratic party (I would blame both, equally), the central point is clear: By not forcefully opposing the Supreme Court, and by not declaring openly that Bush's election in 2000 was a fraud, Gore and his fellow Democrats allowed 2004 to happen when it could not have happened had they spoken out in 2001.

Kerry's sin was worse than Gore's, because by the time 2004 rolled around much more was known about what the Republicans had done four years earlier. Kerry was like a man whose house had been robbed, yet he didn't call the police, didn't install a burglar alarm, didn't care who the robbers were, but gave them a road map for their escape.

#17 Gtash,
I believe you've got it right. To us, to anyone not very closely involved in the nightmare of election 2000, it may look like "What the hell has he been DOING the last 6 years?" Hindsight is always 20/20. It's easy to say "Why didn't he do THIS?" or "How could he NOT have done THAT?" We're not in the man's skin. But the speech he gave last year (was it at NYU ?) took guts. And he was anything but "wooden". I think he may be a changed man.

There are still a hell of alot of people who just CANNOT believe that elections are being rigged & stolen, despite truckloads of evidence.
I imagine for him it may have been even harder to accept that it might actually be true, especially being in the thick of it & BEFORE all the evidence started coming out.
I know, I know...somebody will get on me for that...since there's nothing NEW about crooked elections! But the SCALE of the corruption, wouldn't you say? the audacity of it, was unprecedented. That was not instantly evident. For someone like Gore--for alot of people--I think that is a big pill to swallow.

But hey, I thought Kerry was an honorable man at one point. I could be wrong here too.

DUH!!! REMEMBER THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE...IT IS OUR ESCAPE CLAUSE THAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS...NO DOUBT FIRST CLASS OBSERVERS OF HUMAN NATURE PUT IN FOR JUST SUCH AN EVENTUALITY...I AM AN OLD ARTHRIC MAN...BUT IF I WAS YOUNG AGAIN...SAVE THE REPUBLIC...WHAT KILLED ROME WASN'T SEXUAL IMMORALITY BUT IMPERIAL HEDGEMONY AND THE POWER THAT COMES FROM HUMAN GREED AND HUBRIS...THE ROAD BUSH IS LEADING US DOWN...HOPEFULLY WE WILL SURVIVE...
:confused:

This is one of the most intelligent and thoughtful discussions on this matter that I've read or heard in some time.
For more on Al Gore's state of mind, I would suggest the David Remnick piece in The New Yorker, Sept 13 2004 (also on The new Yorker web site (search "the Wilderness Campaign") and seeing the not-to-be-missed film "An Inconvenient Truth".
The New Yorker article mentions that in 2004, Al Gore appeared on an alternative pop album called "Plastic 350" by a band called Monkey Bowl. He adds his 2 cents worth on a song called "Al Gore". It is a beautiful thing. It's on iTunes and the album is at infinitycat.com (or their store at musicfansdirect/infinity)
It's worth hearing his words at the end of the song (the album's not bad either!).
This discussion (especially voter fraud) has got to pick up momentum as the 2006 elctions near, or it'll be deja vu all over again.

Can anyone here see how the two-party system contributes to election fraud?

Gore and Kerry made the same error. They thought the issue was about THEM. If they couldn't prove fraud quickly, better (in their minds) to allow it and hope the people who did it won't do it again.

Crooks don't work that way. This isn't rocket science, folks. If you allow someone to steal your wallet, what you don't do is leave the wallet out in the open again, because having gotten away with stealing it once, he'll do it again as sure as God made little green apples.

Elections aren't about Democrats and Republicans, they're about people and freedom. The right to vote belongs to us, and when an election is stolen the people suffer. One party wins and another loses, but in the big picture, everyone loses. The miserable presidency of George W. Bush simply confirms the fact.

#27
"...we are as responsible for this mess as anyone in Washington..." No. We're not.
Yes, it's up to us now, but our only choices are violent revolution or the legal system, as fucked up as it is. And they have WAY more firepower.

I, too, must rise; as a Southern man, in defense of the state of Tennessee!

I have lived in Nashville for ten years. I grew up in Mississippi and I matured in (the place I still call "home") Louisiana; but Tennessee is where I intend to live out my days - or at least my working days... And a big part of that is that the area (I'm most familiar with Middle Tennessee...) is relentlessly nice. Good people. Salt of the earth, as they say. Do anything for ya. It sounds hokey, but it's true. And they will help anybody out, Black, White or anybody else. I'm very pleased to be raising my children in this place.

I have NEVER seen any thick racist attitudes in our city. Hell, Howard Gentry, a black man and a Democrat, is the vice-mayor and may soon be our mayor, despite the fact that we only have about 20% African-American population. And this in the largest city and the capital of the state of Tennessee. Howard Gentry beat a quality white man moderate Dem for the vice-mayor job. I'm a white man. Who'd I vote for? Howard Gentry.
So please don't call us racist, there, Mr. "Paul Revere."
As for the rest of the state, I see more of the (very rare) racist tendency in East Tennessee, where there are few blacks and therefore it's easier to perpetuate that sort of thing; but still, most of those people do not think of themselves as racists, but instead merely (as KestralBrightEyes says..) Christian.
The Western part of the state, is, like Mississippi and Louisiana, perhaps slightly racist within the white powerholder elite - but those folks are mostly Republican anyway, and they didn't defeat Al Gore.
The po whites - the rest of us - are busilly living, working, schooling and loving in multi-cultural Southern situations, and the racism question is sooo over. The fact is, a Memphis Black man, Harold Ford, Jr. may just be (should the votes be counted fairly on our no-paper-ballot machines) the next Senator from the state of Tennessee...
The '00 reality is that Gore was libeled as a "Godless liberal" by a huge NRA and Religious Right coalition that claimed he'd lost his Tennessee values - guilt by association with Blue Dress Bill Clinton.
Another truth is that he could have won here, but it would have taken way too much time and money, so the campaign decided to focus on Florida to take the win. And it worked. He did win!
The other truth is that he didn't campaign well here. I saw him answer on local TV the question about why Bill Clinton was not campaigning for him, and he smiled wanly and said in his best beta male wimp voice, "Well, uh, I'm campaigning as my own man..."
I knew he was done in TN right then. Anytime Bubba is wondering about your manliness in Tennessee, like, say, when the NRA hammers you questions of your testosterone level, it's a good idea to be forceful and aggressive in your demeaner. Al Gore didn't do that then.

I've seen Al's environmental presentation (at Vandy a couple months back), and he is a powerful, warm, charming and funny speaker now; when left to his own devices. I'd vote for that guy in a minute. Everyone who knows Gore around here says he's as great a cat as you'd ever wanna know.
So look, "Paul Revere," I don't know what you saw in one tiny visit to TN that made you think we're racist, but you need to get over that.
And we appologize for Frist...

Come on down. There's plenty of us Godless heathens here, and ain't none of us been stoned yet.
Well, OK, actually a lot of us have been stoned...
Naw, you just got to know how to appreciate the faith of the RRRight without being angry at some of 'em for being so stupid...
And if you wanna get stoned with some of the heathens, I hear (though of course, I have no personal knowledge...) that there's a big time cash crop growing in the hills of TN...

I hope Kestrel and Shannon will agree that Tennessee harbors a lot of anti-intellectualism, which to my way of thinking is just as dangerous as mixing religion and politics.

I had the privilege of directing "Inherit the Wind" for a local theater group in Connecticut 15 years ago. I also discussed the Monkey Trial, which took place in Dayton, Tennessee, in "The Lindbergh Syndrome."

The trial was about evolution vs. creationism, but it was really more about the social chasm between big-city intellectuals like Darrow and down-home religious folk like Bryan. Darrow was brilliant, but he was also condescending and superior toward people who weren't, thus he lost the support of Dayton's intellectual minority, which resented his attitude even while agreeing with him on evolution.

So an important question involving what we teach our kids in school was never settled, as it might have been. The trial became a media circus and a cultural clash, not a route to sanity. George W. Bush carried Tennessee because too many locals regarded Gore as another Darrow...an intellectual who really wasn't "one of them," even though his father had been an icon in the state.

IMHO, I think Gore is simply saying that working within the current system would not have helped him right the wrongs of that election. The system needs to change itself - if you know what I mean - and they are not doing a very good job of it. The only other alternative would be to work outside the system - which he is doing now but in a peaceful, intriguing, and very winning manner. But as for the election, he could have yelled very loudly, the rest of us would have joined in, and in the end, we'd all be hoarse, and likely living in a more hellish police-state place than we are now. If we ended up alive that is. Because the "system" proved itself flawed and it proved itself broken, and it continues to shatter at every turn. Aside from having the SC decide the election erroneously, I will never forget the plainly rabid, hateful, violent, vengeful, win-at-any-cost, republican operatives bussed down to florida to bang on windows...and to stop progress. That kind of shit should just make you go whoa nelly, reflexively take a step back, quietly walk away, and figure out how to effect this much-needed change in a way that wins everyone.

Shannon,
Thanks for the invite! Haha, careful, I just might take you up on it. I spent a week in Nashville some years ago & actually had a great time in a little bar one night, watching folks dance. Great music!
Being an "old hippie" I put in my time getting stoned (in the proper 60's sense) during my wild youth, so... been there, done that!
I TRY to be respectful of others' views on religion. It sure is a challenge, though!
What I find astonishing is that so many people (though seemingly, thank goodness, an ever-dwindling number) still believe george bush to be a "good Christian man". I would think they would be mightily offended by his blatantly un-Christian policies!!
Not that I need to tell you that.

I live in TN, so I can testify to both the pros & the cons that have been enumerated above. I don't know if I can ever forgive TN for what they did to Gore, a native son.

That being said, Al is a decent, thoughtful human being who lacks the killer instinct that has ensconced the neocons in power. People don't realize, but we just went through a revolution and the forces of darkness won. I think we may have to have that violent revolution to get rid of the scum & before we can clean our nation up and get rid of the stench that covers us all.

I agree with Miss P the system does need to change. One way to start is supporting Democratic candidates in the November elections and take back at least the House, if not the Senate also. Then there can be full investigations into the myriad of issues (completion of 9/11 Commission Report, lead-up to War in Iraq. etc etc etc) and legislation for election reform.

But first and foremost we must keep our eye and energy directed to midterm election.

For Miss P.: Everything you say is right. You can't fight serious criminals with cap guns. But I respectfully submit that for Gore to have kept silent, because to have yelled would have brought on a police state (or for any other reason), simply postponed the problem to a future generation, meanwhile guaranteeing that the 2004 election would be stolen...and 2006, 2008, ad infinitum.

Gore (and especially Kerry) dealt with the frauds as political problems, not as criminality. They asked themselves, "Can we win the fight?" and decided, "No, we can't." Gore, at least, gave it an effort, Kerry quit immediately, but both made the mistake of thinking only about OUTCOMES and not about ELECTORAL INTEGRITY. "If I can't win this fight, I'm not going to try, no matter the consequences for future elections or the right of the public to have its votes counted properly."

Whatever else they will have done throughout their careers, Gore and Kerry will be remembered in the history books as selfish political operatives who knew the 2000 and 2004 elections were fraudulent but wouldn't pay the political cost of saying so. Kerry in particular is a disappointment, because he had earlier shown a willingness to speak out bravely, regardless of the cost to him personally.

We're not all racists and bigots in TN. We're going to put Harold Ford Jr. in by a landslide. You have to understand that Gore has grown a lot since he was VP. People in TN remember him as he was when he was a Senator which was not good.

RLM, I'm usually with you on your posts, but I really think you're off base here.

Gore's concession in '00 didn't enable the Repugnantcan election fraud of '04. Yes, Gore's campaign was poorly run on a number of fronts. YES, racism had a role in the popular vote -not just in TN, either- but NOT with a black campaign manager, Bigoted Americans will NOT elect a JEW to the executive branch, period.

It's the abject failure of our formerly free press that's to blame for enabling Repugnantcan election fraud. No matter how obvious, no matter how impossible Chimpy's "win" of '04 was, the lapdog press utterly REFUSED to report anything of substance on the rigged election at all. Not only that, but the media (both local and national) actively shunned any such discussion as delusional and unworthy of any examination.

I think, in context, what Vice President Gore said, about there not being an intermediate step between violent revolution and the Supreme court decision, is easy to understand and to visualize. Let us say, for the sake of this discussion, that with the margin of popular vote in his favor, as sitting vice president he decided to "fan the flames" of outrage from his supporters, and having access to the military, refused to step down, refused to honor the court decision refused to accept defeat. What would his options have been. There were partisans on BOTH sides who felt disposed towards violence. I think the possibility of a breakdown in social order was very real. He chose to go through the legal process. He tempered his deep and justfiable anguish at the outcome and and in the interests of the country and the Constitution he had sworn to uphold, he did the correct and very difficult thing. None of us had any notion then, as we do now, of the horrors that awaited us.

With Chimpy, the caveat: "no one could have forseen".... is employed at every disasterous turn. But Gore, in conceding the '00 election, really could use it. After all, who could've forseen that Chimpy would either ignore or actively participate in allowing 9-11 to occur, in order to exploit a dramatic terrorist attack as justification for pre-emptive war? Seriously. We all knew Chimpy would be a fuck up. But this bad???

No, Gore's motives for conceding were honest and had the best interests of our nation at heart. Kerry however has NO SUCH EXCUSE.

Al Gore should have said something, just as Kerry should have and we the people should have shown our outrage at both elections with national strike days that dwarfed the immigration rallies of LA! Then the media should have been outraged and slammed the newspapers, TVs and radios with the 'investigations' until the truth was puked out!

I still think a national strike (like stand in middle of all major highways and roadways) type of strike in needed to wake those chickenshit (both sides) representatives and senators up and remind them they represent us, not special interest.

The media once had a panel and Helen Thomas said that people have not shown outrage so they can't....Well Helen your sweet, but you all must lead with truth so that the morons that are afraid can open up and show their hidden outrage too. Until the media leads with truth those of us that speak of truths that go uncovered will continue to be called conspiracy freaks and nuts!

We ask for no favors but truth on the front pages on a daily bases! Then we can deliver outrage!

For BMII: I agree with you that the corporate media have been totally irresponsible. I'd go further and call them accessories-after-the-fact of fraud, because it's impossible to believe that every newspaper publisher and every TV network executive is oblivious of the fact that two elections in a row have been stolen. It isn't a case of passivity; the media have in fact suborned criminal conduct by keeping silent.

But we'll have to agree to disagree about Gore. He might have had the right motives between the election and Bush's first inauguration, but as the revelations have come forward since, especially regarding voting machine companies, he's had a duty to speak out...if for no other reason than to help prevent the same thing from happening in 2004. He said nothing, though he did criticize Bush for other failures. He's not afraid to talk tough, so I conclude his failure to address the 2000 election fraud is a calculated decision on his part.

For me, it comes down to the difference between a public servant and a self-interested politician. A true public servant would ask, "What's best for the country?" A politician asks, "What will work for me?"
For Al Gore, knowing what he knew about the 2000 election, to have issued no warnings about 2004, and to have played it coy ever since on the topic despite a second election debacle, tells me his thoughts are about 2008. In that regard he's been
asking himself, "Do I dare risk being called a wimp and a sore loser for claiming I was screwed back in 2000?" His answer to himself? "I can't risk it."

The word "politician" has three "I's" in it. It doesn't have any "W's" or "E's." That's no accident.

"I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box." Thomas Jefferson (1743"1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President

I truly believe Al Gore conceeded the 2000 election to avoid the very real possibility of civil strife degenerating into a civil war. There are a lot of long suffering tensions brewing in the Collective American Subconsciousness - the only thing keeping a lid on it is the mass medias deliberate framing. Healthcare, Pensions, retirement security, actual Cost of living (not the fabricated "official" COL), job security, corporate and govenrment mafeasus, "immigration".

Small wonder the Bushites are institutionalizing the Total Information Awareness domestic spying apparatus with the aid of "private business" like Choice Point, AT&T, SBC, Yahoo, et.al. Plain and simle its the old fashion Nixon enemy's list. Enemies of the State - enemies of the Corporations "private Contractors". :angry:

I took Al Gore's statement differently to mean that in 2000 there was a pending Republican Moral Majority revolution brewing and since there wasn't a step between the Supreme Court and a violent revolution, they used the Supreme Court option. In other words a coup on the American voting system occured that was aided by the Supreme Court, which had been successfully stacked with conservatives since Reagan. The more I think about my take on Al's remark and after reading the other interpretations, perhaps mine was incorrect.

I lived in the "Volunteer State" for 1.5 years (1992-1993). Clarksville.

(My landlord there once "informed" me - read, warned - of a "Black boy" - his words - who moved in a couple of doors down from my apartment.)

I was viewed by my friends and colleagues as being a "Damned Yankee." It was about 2 notches above being Black.

I know well of the influence the ultra-right Church of Christ was on state politics. (An office building used by several State Agencies on Church Street in downtown Nashville was owned by the Baptist Sunday School Commssion).

2 days before election day 1992, I remember my pastor at the Clarksville First Assembly of God informing me about how I should cast my vote. He said (from the pulpit) that he didn't care about the economy (remember Mr. Carville's "It's the economy, stupid?"). Instead he cared about "Family Values." He said that if he went further and endorsed any candidate that the Montgomery County party lawyers would sue him. (He left out the word Democrat intentionally.)

While voters in Tennessee are conservative, no doubt about it... (my ultra-rightist Republican Congressman Don Sundquist became governor after Neddie boy left.) However, I am seeing no real preference between Democrat (like current Gov. Bredesen) and Republican there.

Nashville is diverse. So are Memphis and Knoxville. But even that is relative.

If everyone who believes that our election process is fradulent would organize and march on Washington D.C. and demand that Congress pass laws that ensure that every vote is counted, maybe we could bring more attention to this issue. As we all know, the "Liberal Mainstream Media" has not covered the fact that we have crooks in this country who are stealing our freedom through election fraud.

But a bill was proposed by House Rep. Russ Holt in February of 2005 that is languishing in the House. Bill HR 550 "The Voter Confidence And Increased Accessiblity Act of 2005", would help decrease the chance of election fraud by use of a voter verified paper audit trail, among other things.

I quote from Rep. Holt's website below:

"But in November 2004 as many as 50 million voters voted on electronic voting machines with no voter verified paper trail. The accuracy of the vote count in those instances can never be confirmed, and there was enough distrust of November’s election results that a challenge to the certificate of the electoral votes from Ohio was launched, heard and voted upon in Congress before the 2004 election was ratified. Therefore, this security and auditability enhancement – a voter verified paper audit trail --- must be implemented as soon as possible, and before the next general election. H.R. 550 is not designed to solve every problem with the electoral process, only one of the most fundamental and pressing: the current lack of the ability to verify the accuracy of approximately 50 million American votes."

Legislation on this issue is long overdue and if we don't bring attention to it and demand action, we could have a repeat of more fraud in the 2006 elections in November.

If millions of people can march on the issue of immigration, surely millions more can march on the subject of our trampled voting rights!

The Al Gore of 2000 was a DLC, inside the Beltway, corporate shill stiff who simply crafted his candidacy based on what the right wing media said he had to do. (which of course meant he didn't crush Bush 70-30% like he should have.)

The Al Gore of 2006 realizes that following the script of professional DLC losers whose job it is to help elect extremist RW Republicans is not the way to go. He realizes that if you speak truth to power, you fight like heck for the middle class of America, you don't participate in the divisive race and gay baiting of the Right and when punched by a right winger you ALWAYS punch back five times as hard, you will WIN big and destroy the right wing forever.

So Gore, from his erroneous ways, has rediscovered his passion, his values, and I feel genuinely would make a great President.

In 2000 I voted for Gore with my hand held to my nose and simply because his opponent was George W Bush. In 2008 I will vote for Gore expecting a great president.

RLM #40:
Anti-intellectualism in TN? I don't know that I'd agree that there is more here than elsewhere; other than there is more Radical Religious Right than in the rest of America. And of course that can be called "faith-based" living instead of "reality-based" or maybe "science-based." Faith-based means, for many, that they do not have to be bothered with facts, for God speaks to their hearts what to believe. Those of us who live in the South mostly have a strong knowledge of these folks, having been raised that way or regularly dealing with such types. However, those folks are only about 20% of America's voters, and maybe what, 30% in the South?
Many would say the African-American faith-based communities are anti-intellectual, too. However, they tend to vote just as overwhelmingly left as the mostly white RRRight votes to the right. It's pretty much a wash there. Our tradition of rural poverty and rule by a moneyed elite tends to keep our schools less successful, when measured against the rest of the country. But again, it's mostly a question of money - or lack of it - available for education.
I don't think anti-intellectualism necessarily means you land on the left or right in the scope of history. I believe Gore is a good man, but unfortunately the nature of the political beast is always trying to calculate the numbers. He was a well-respected Senator when he represented our state; as was his dad. I do find it odd that so many of the pols don't seem able to see that there is a chance, no matter which side they're on, that the votes will be rigged against them.

In conclusion, there is a lot of good and good people and yes, there are intellectuals - here in the South. Don't lump us all together.

Why wont people implement a paper trail? I have no problem with electronic voting if they can be proven to be tamperproof. As far as I know ATM machines dont make mistakes. The banks would never allow it. Further, even though people would balk at it, your fingerprint could be scanned (separately from how you voted) just to show you were that person and not some ballot stuffing device. People have no objection to showing their driver's license, why would they object to the fingerprint scan? There are ways, but they are not in place.

If we believe Gore won in 2000, we should jump on his bandwagon for 2008...even if Gore refuses to say he really did win in 2000?

I'm really curious to understand how Gore's new legion of supporters expects him to win in 2008 if the issue of election fraud hasn't been addressed (and who better to address it than Gore?). Do we assume the current revelations about Diebold and E.S.&.S., and the efforts of Brad, Bev Harris and others will have put the fear of God into Republicans, who will then take the pledge not to steal another election? Or is it suggested that if Democrats take control of Congress this year, they will force the issue to the surface in 2007, taking Gore off the hook?

Sorry to tell you folks,but Al could have made a move to stop ratification of the 2000 vote-results as his final act in the chairmanship of the Senate. He even went so far as to talk Barbara Boxer out of voting against the results. He said some gibberish about "...for the good of the nation."
Nope. He's in on it. The fix is in,people. Either he's been bought out or threatened,but it doesn't matter. He's part of The System. He plays Good Cop,so Bush & Co. can play Bad Cop.
But what he said about Revolution is true. Too bad he could never lead it! Gore couldn't even win his homestate.
As for Sandra Day O'Connor,the Supreme Court would never have even adjudicated this case if Katherine Harris(Bush's Florida Campaign Chairman) hadn't been allowed to act as State Attorney General when the results were in question.
She should have been forced to recuse herself. Nobody noticed. And you want to blame O'Connor? The whole thing has MANY,MANY levels of deception.

2000 was stolen, and 2004 was stolen. The thieves were violent robber barons, and they were not only the repugnant Republican operatives (revolting slime, from Darth Cheney, Kindasleaza, Gingrich, the Chimperor, Henry Hyde on down to the rest of the vile gang)- but for the most part, included the Felonious Five of the Extreme Court, a treasonously compliant US legislature, and a woefully ignorant or soporific public.

There is no punishment sufficient or commensurate for these criminals of historic proportions. A deeply endangered world, and hundreds of thousands of innocent dead cry out for reparations.

One can only hope that a rejuvenated and morally energized Gore (or some such true leader) can wrest power back for sane and thinking people from the hands of these mindless thugs.

And there it is again: "people have not shown outrage".
The outrage that people have shown & are showing is not COVERED, just as all the many, many stories about our ongoing electoral mess are barely covered.

Irish,
I wouldn't put ALL the blame on the media though. Alot, but not all.
Personally, I think alot of media people & lawmakers have been blackmailed & threatened.
Add to that, that election fraud isn't new & it's been honed for alot of years by corrupt people. Add to that, huge amounts of cash & plenty of lobbyists, corporations & other special interest groups to spread it around.
And add to THAT, the neo-cons' systematic dismantling of checks & balances & their re-writing of (and/or total disrespect for) our laws.
It's a "perfect storm" of corruption, crime & greed, I think. Alot of people, alot of layers of blame.
What did I leave out?
Oh, right: it's Clinton's fault!

Al Gore made some mistakes in dealing with the Florida debacle, but I don't think his decision not to cry foul after the SCOTUS decision was one of them. I do believe he has used his time wisely since then, and I also think he has grown as a person. There are some who would join in a violent revolution against the current establishment, but there have been some hefty weapons and tools put in place by GW and his supporters and enablers. When the Patriot Act was first presented, I had the feeling its purpose, at least in part, was to help quell any civil unrest within the country. And when the new Halliburton-built prisons within the US came to light, I found it easy to visualize them as a holding pen for our own countrymen. Anyone with the skill and intelligence needed to lead a revolution would also have the intelligence to weigh the total situation we find ourselves in. Many "revolutions" have died at the onset, achieving nothing but purging the ranks for the establishment.

To Al Gore: Sit down and write out your thoughts. Think them through make revision and then spit it out. Our American Democracy has been desecrated, our elections STOLEN, and our environment left to be fcking destroyed by greedy bastards who don't give a shit. The time is now to speak your mind..tomarrow the Republidem House votes to dig where the glaciers are melting fast. COME ON MAN YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Gore's "loss" in '00 was far more attributable to the Supreme's misconduct than it was to the vote rigging machinery of '04. Yes, there were elements of that, but there were other issues like Choicepoint's bullying of minority voters too...but '00 came down to the Supremes and their partisan bullshit.

That said, I agree that Gore (as does EVERY Democrat) has a duty to question the issue of shameless vote rigging on the part of the fucking GOP.

But no matter how you slice it, if our formerly free press continues to aid and abet the vote rigging crimes of the GOP, the fucking GOP will remain as our un-elected "majority" government.

On one hand, I can understand Dem's hesitancy to crow about the GOP's vote rigging, as the GOP's sychophantic MSM will successfully portray them as tin-foil hat loonies and nutty conspiracy theorists - UNLESS some genuinely trusted news source (if any actually exist anymore) stands up and reports the truth about vote-rigging software and impossible outcomes...and I can understand how Dem's might be concerned about inciting riots or advocating civil unrest against an illegally "elected" government....

On the other hand, I WANT them to stop being such fucking doormats. I WANT them to get up and fight these cheating motherfuckers.

Our country needs these vote-rigging crimes to be exposed and those who benefitted from it should be summarily removed from office. Period.

I'm hoping that the investigation into Ohio's Bob Ney -neck deep in rigging the '04 election- will expose the GOP vote rigging efforts once and for all. But unless there's a criminal investigation that leads there, and unless the MSM REPORTS IT, we're all fucked - no matter what Gore or anyone else says.

I believe the easiest person to forgive for failing to fight for our Democratic Republic is Al Gore. When he made his "deal" in January of 2000 not to allow any Democratic senator to stand with Congresswomen Lee and challenge the Florida vote --- THAT was the final moment when the 2000 election was ceded to the thieves and cheaters. He honestly believed that it was just "the other party" that had won and that they would play fair and that nothing drastic would happen. Even Sandra Day O'Conner might have believed that it was "just the other party" that she giving the Presidency to in a totally partisan and non-judicial manner without any true moral right and against the will of the people.

BUT, they were wrong. By late in 2001 it was clear that the neo-cons and the PNAC controlled this Presidency and that they were more than just "Republicans" but that they were evil and bent on destruction of our democracy. IF ONLY we had just GWB and the idiot non-savant he is as POTUS, that would be BAD ENOUGH, but to have Cheney et al. running the country --- that was a really, really, really big mistake.

So, perhaps Gore didn't see what was coming, especially as a life-long participant in the us/them, Democrats/Republicans, coin flip game.

BUT KERRY KNEW BETTER! By 2004 the neo-cons, theo-cons and rabid right had shown their evil in full force (including the 2002 mid-terms) and nobody who prized our Democratic Republic could fail to see the danger they posed. Kerry knew that a large number of his supporters were "soft" on him (especially the ones he got from Dean) but we knew enough to know he was a necessary choice. His promises to "fight for every vote" and "make sure every vote was counted" were more than campaign promises to us --- they were a NECESSARY REASON FOR US TO SUPPORT HIM.

His concession the next morning was disgusting and horribly self-serving, and most sadly, unsuccessfully self-serving because nobody in the progressive movement will EVER trust John Kerry again for anything. If he says (relatively) quiet in the Senate, we will leave him alone, but if he ever looks for support from us again, you can be sure we will look for a solid opponent. Kerry betrayed those who believe in election reform and he won't be forgiven.

I honestly believe that 2006 is the most important election in the history of this nation. Even as a mid-term without a choice for POTUS, I believe that if the Republicans are allowed to steal the many races they will be underdogs in (by perhaps as much as 25%) they will believe themselves empowered to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to solidify their power. I do not honestly believe we will EVER see another honest election again and the "violent revolution" that Gore feared will become inevitable. The timetable may not be easy to determine for when this revolution will occur, because there are still more apathetic, uneducated, and mis-informed (thanks FOX news) Americans than there are those who know and understand what is being done to them. We are in the stage where Hitler was consolidating power and the "good Germans" were going along because it all seemed so "reasonable." When the camps are opened and the real evil shows itself, there will be more and more who oppose these combined nut-jobs. Then, it will be a matter of HOW and WHEN.

Or, perhaps, just as little America and the rest of Europe came to the rescue in WWII, some other large nation (perhaps China?) will choose to SAVE the USA, rather than just let us implode or become an international danger.

We live in VERY interesting times.

Remember...

1. Vote in 2006. (No "R"s, EVER!)
2. Watch your local polls.
3. If the results of the vote don't match the polling by more than 10-15%, get the word out.
4. Take to the streets and demand honest elections.

It could be our last chance. Don't bet on Kerry or Gore standing by your side in the streets. Or even the Congressperson or Senator whose election you are fighting for.

If Gore continues to stoke the crowds with his sincere warnings about the environment, and his accurate protrayal of the Bush Administration's abysmal record in environmental care, he is going to have an opportunity to expand his message. I think he feels comfortable with himself on environmental matters and it shows, and people respond postively. I do not yet think would be so comfortable with himself, or his audience comfortable with him, if he should begin talking loudly about election fraud. As much as I wish he would, and as much as it would satisfy lots of us to have a true "star" out front on the pulpit of Democracy for this issue, I believe it would be a total disaster for him and the cause. My assessment is that he knows it won't work, but that he is determined to win "the cowboy way". I think he is positioning to fight a good fight and a fair fight, but he is going to pick the issue and define it this time.

Many here have soberly said the Neocons and the Religious Righteous don't play fair and it's a fool's errand to come to a gunfight with a knife. I think that is true. But as an armchair psychologist (which is to say not a psychologist at all), I believe Gore is going to try to make the fight come to him on his terms and lay the argument out before the people. I think he still believes the system can still work and that it is not the time to break it up. He really wants the people to overwhelm the opposition in such volume that it cannot be denied...not even close.

Charlie L #71 has the right idea inasmuch as he says "No R's EVER". That is exactly what Gore wants you to do.

A bit more---
I guess I am saying Gore has been in politics long enough to know the ins-and-outs. He has had time to think about it. He has made peace with a fact: "They stole it fair and square" as the joke goes. He has spent the last several years re-evaluating himself and becoming increasingly angry at the abuse our nation is suffering under the dishonesty and incompetent "leadership". But the guy is a Southerner---this fight is about winning an honorable victory, not a victory at all costs. And if it must be about loss as well, it will be (his) honorable loss this time, not a political hijacking.

Think back to the "debates" of 2000. Gore could hardly stand to be in the same room with with the revolting troglodyte- g. bush (lower case letters intentional). After all, Gore is a mature, urbane sophisticate-just the man you want to show to the rest of the world as the best of our people. Contrast that to the callow ignoramus that our"dear leader" is. It's no wonder Gore was frequently disgusted at the chimp opposing him, as he proceeded to demolish him in the debates. bush simply didn't realize that he'd been bested-and didn't care, since he knew the "fix was in". The ONLY thing I hold against Gore is his shameful acquiescense to the fraud and election theft that occured. If you don't think this'll happen again, you have your head in the sand-or worse.

GTash,
"...I do not yet think [he] would be so comfortable with himself, or his audience comfortable with him, if he should begin talking loudly about election fraud..."

I most heartily disagree. The big, weighty anchor in regard to election fraud is THE TRUTH.
It is TRUE that Bev Harris is on video showing Howard Dean how hackable the machines are. It is TRUE that Bruce Funk & Ion Sancho ran documented, verifiable tests confirming this hackability.
There is a truckload of testimony, affidavits & allegations that have been prematurely dismissed & systematically ignored.
These things EXIST. They are investigatible.
The truth NEEDS to be faced.

One CAN & should begin to talk about all this, being careful to call an allegation an allegation and a fact a fact.

Of course they don't & won't play fair. If Gore takes this on he will be called a nut, a conspiracy theorist, every name in the book.
And that claptrap needs to be thrown back in their faces as the nonsense that it is.

"Here is my evidence. Where's yours?"

"We don't know yet if that is true, because it's never been investigated."

"One reaches a conclusion AFTER investigating, not BEFORE!"

And to fourth-grade-level epithets like "conspiracy nut", "leftist kook" etcetera, there's a very simple response:

"Derision is the preferred weapon of the weaker argument."

If it is TRUE--and we know it is--it CANNOT be avoided.

GTash, you said Gore's talking about this issue
"... would be a total disaster for him and the cause."

I have some ambivalence toward a Gore 2008 redux. I liked him very much in 2000. I believe the election was hi-jacked, just as those planes were hi-hacked less than a year later, and that hi-jacking allowed additional hi-jacking of our government.

I agree with the folks who think Gore simply felt that Bush would be a reasonable conservative. I believe had McCain been nominated and won under those circumstances, that he would have run a centrist, to the right, government. Maybe others would have too. But this Bush thing...there is something very evil about them. I think Michael Moore was on to that in his documentary. Something isn't right. It is really a right wing cabal.

So, I don't fault Gore for his concession in 2000, but I do fault him with not taking up the mantle in 2004. If Kerry came as close as he did, that tells me Gore would have probably won with a reasonable margin. I think he might even have found a way to win TN the second time around. The fact he didn't run in 2004 sort of made me mad at him. But, again, he said he didn't want the 2004 race to be a revisitation of 2000. But the stakes were so high knowing Bush' true colors, Gore should have just done it.

Gore seems to have a problem in not identifying the best times to strike. I believe had he run in 1992, he would have won the nomination, not Clinton, and he would have been president, served two terms and not loaded the party down with all that sexual baggage. That might have kept down the flames of the neo-cons and realigned the realignment.

At first I was even mad that he endorsed Dean in 2004. I initially felt he owed it to his VP nominee in 2000 not to do that, or to at least call him first, but I recall how wishy washy Lieberman was in the whole 2000 legal fight after the election. He just took it on the chin on national TV when folks talked about the military folks not having their absentee votes counted. I'm all for everyone having their votes counted, but if those folks in military can't get their stuff in on time, they shouldn't be counted. Nearly 30,000 good American blacks in my hometown of Jacksonville had their votes tossed out, probably because their polling places had inferior equipment. If half of those had been counted, Gore would have won.

Regardless, I am starting to think that Gore should run this time. He deserves another chance to right the terrible injustice of 2000. He is a smart, capable man, and he now seems to be more comfortable in his humanity. The election of the rightful winner of the 2000 election eight years later would be a good way to pull down the curtain on the last eight years of treachery.

Let me be clear. I thnk Gore's talking about the issue would be a disaster. I think the issue needs to be aired agressively in public, but I do not think Gore is the guy to do it. And I think HE thinks he is not the guy to do it.

Who is? Good question. I like the way Howard Dean talks, but for some reason (perhaps his position in the Demo Party) he does not go full bore. Kerry could, but won't. Hillary is too busy being a triangulator. But if Gore did it he would be perceived as a "sore loser--you had your chance" and the tag would stick once Fox started pushing it. (You probably don't buy that, but I do.) Look at the posts here. We're mostly on the same side of the election fraud issue, but we are split on whether Kerry or Gore deserves a second chance.

I really want John Edwards to weigh in, I think he will shy away from it too.

People in power, elected officials, human wastoids who know the truth but stand idol to go along with the sheep instead of coming clean with the TRUTH OF FRAUDULANT RIGGED us ELECTIONS DESERVE NOTHING BUT SHAME..NUTHIN VENTURED NOTHING GAINED..NO GUTS NO GLORY. WE ARE A LEADERLESS STATE, LEADERLESS COUNTRY, LEADERLESS WORLD. Damn them all.

The Dems are either so worried about posturing or (duh) in on it (which is why it is called the "Republidem" party. DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM.

Thank you all for sharing alot of good thoughts. Some of the things expressed here I think should be sent directly to the potential candidates: Edwards, Gore, Feingold, whomever. We need to let them in on this conversation. Let them know there are serious, thoughtful people paying attention.

#76... just so you know, your African-American friends in Jacksonville (many of whom were probably voting for the first time) had their votes thrown out because the machines in their districts were set to "void" overvotes, rather than return them for re-voting. In non-minority or predominantly Republican precincts, the machines were set to "give another chance" rather than "accept and void" the ballots. Also, many of them may have voted for their choice for President by filling in the oval and then "written in" their choice for Vice-President (Liberman) by hand in the space marked, or written Gore in again there. Those votes would have been voided, but under the Florida standard for "intent of the voter" they are a clear vote for Gore. There were nearly 60,000 such Gore votes in Florida in 2000, versus less than 1,000 such Bush votes.

Just thought you might want to know the FACTS behind your gut feelings. All facts can be sourced from THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY.

Charlie L
Portland, OR

P.S. My feeling is that every Democrat who runs for office in 2006 (or even 2008 if we actually get a chance to then) should run with a "one chance, to the death" mentality and should fight for EVERY SINGLE VOTE, GOING TO COURT IF NECESSARY, TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERY SINGLE VOTE OF EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS COUNTED AND/OR LITIGATED IF NECESSARY. AND THEY SHOULD BE IN COURT THE WEEKS BEFORE THE ELECTION MAKING SURE THAT EVERY ELIGIBLE VOTER IS ALLOWED TO VOTE. Even if it means they can never run for office again. And Kerry should fund their efforts with the tens of millions of dollars of donations he left on the table unspent in 2004 (don't get me started on THAT shit, like there wasn't a place to spend money in 2004 to get out the vote or dispell the swiftboat lies --- WHAT an ill-advised idiot).

Here is what I would like to happen for Gore. He keeps on hammering the environmental irresponsibility of Bush Corp and begins connecting the dots rigorously in public between failed policies and crony corporations. He expands the rhetoric to include something that already has struck a chord with many--that it isn't just scientists who care about the environment, but a large segment of heretofore Quiet Faithful of the Religious Left. What kind of stewards of God's Earth have the Dominionists been? (It's a fair question I won't dwell on here. My point is that there need be no huge gap between science and religion on environment. If there is one guy on the scene right now who can address this with personal prestige and authority, it is Gore.) And if he weaves the connections among these themes, he can expand the concept of "values" beyond wonky policy talking points--something he was previously known for. For fear of putting my argument into a tailspin, let me point out how much more moral authority Jimmy Carter carries today than during his Presidency. I am in the minority on this one, but I happen to think Carter was a fairly good President while being a moderate to poor politician. He learned from his mistakes and went on "to be a better person" (so-to-speak), but he had to step outside politics. Gore's problem is a lot like Carters in that he is perceived to have blundered and he took a big step outside politics--wandered in the wilderness. The mystery of the day is "What did you find, Al?" and "What are you going to do about it?".

What he appears to be doing about it is gathering up the means to re-enter politics, unlike Carter. I cannot think of anyone else who has tried this in recent history and under similar circumstances. But as I said earlier, I think Gore is far from naive and he is someone who cares about honor--his own, and the nation's. He believes in the correctness of the system and general goodness of America. And I think a lot of Americans want to believe the same thing, but are waiting for a demonstration. I think Gore intends to be, or wants to structure, that demonstration.

I'm outta here--my blab meter is waaay over it's limit. Thanks for putting up with it.

Boy that was one big article about Gore! The author of it seems to have matured in his opinion of Gore and no longer reports him as being boring. I thought it was a very good and illuminating article. I think Gore truly loves this country and most likely didn’t think Bush would actually be able or willing to turn it into a Theocracy by either “acting” or “being” stupid! Of course this is precisely what has happened. I don’t know if the Republicans even knew they would be able to use this unaccountablity at the top with such success. Bully for you Theologians!

I think Al Gore has emerged as someone who has the ability see the needs of the future. The thing you’re using right now to exercise your freedom of speech in ways unimaginable less then ten years ago is compelling proof. Of course John Poindexter also helped, but not willingly by any stretch. I guess that could be considered the only example I can think of where something was designed for the purpose of evil and later used for good. Of course Gore’s concern for the environment goes back way before that.

Fact is, other then grossly missing the threat of letting Bush have power, Al is one smart guy! I still continue to be astonished at how much the media disdains US citizens and STILL think it’s going to start informing us even after buying a book called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”.

By the way one other question I asked Marcos Mulitsas when he was in town here was “what has happened to Joe Trippi”? He said Trippi is unable to get anyone to let him run a campaign for them. Guess they are scarred off by the subtitle of his book, “The Overthrow Of Everything”. Maybe Al Gore will recruit him in the future.

I think the country is slowly coming to the realization that it doesn’t matter as much who’s in the white house, but if the person there works well with others and LISTENS to EVERYBODY. YOUNG and OLD! Most Democrats, Independents, etc...probably out of necessity have that ability. Republicans have about 40 years to prove they can. Start now dipshits!

At any rate, Gore is someone that is very hard to outwardly berate nowdays. You’ve probably noticed there aren’t very many trolls on this thread.

I believe that Gore and Kerry conceded quietly for the same (somewhat selfish) reason. Both realized that they could continue their life of privilege and access to the MSM if they did not make waves. They did not want to be thrown on the scrap pile with (superpatriots) like Jane Fonda, Michael Moore and Ramsey Clark.

Having written this, I still believe that both are good, honest, capable men who always try to act in the best interest of the nation. I think they could have made bold statements, but did not do so because they thought the nation would survive 8 years of the BCFOL. I pray that they are correct.

I think Gore is treading lightly because he knows that the issue is old and raising it now is not likely to help his next presidential campaign.

I think he's being quite sensible there. In the 1970s, here in Australia, a government was unfairly dismissed, and an election was held in which the unfair dismissal was the main issue. The government that had been dismissed wasn't elected, and the main reason is that very few people were at all concerned by matters of constitutional propriety or proper democratic procedure.

The same is surely true in the U.S. today. To win an election, in the U.S. or anywhere else, you have to come across as 'future-oriented.' Since Gore is the only person around who seems to have any constructive ideas whatsoever, I think he'll do just fine taking about what he will do when he takes office rather than about the lingering wounds from 2000.

For Social Democracy Now: How can an issue be "old" if it has never once been vetted in the media or any other nationwide forum?

Old? That's like saying the argument over global warming is "old." People who raise the issue of election fraud are called "conspiracy theorists," even though the laws of mathematical probability, applied against the exit polls and tabulated votes from 2004, confirm that a fraud must have occurred. People who raise the issue of global warming are dismissed as fear-mongerers, even though the vast majority of scientists worldwide regard global warming as a potential disaster.

What does "old" mean? You're speaking of political consequences in saying Gore wouldn't benefit from raising the issue of election fraud. But no candidate has yet raised it, so how can it be an old issue? No media source has gone near it. It's the elephant in the room in terms of our democracy, and you'd reduce it to the level of an ineffectual political issue?

Short and sweet. If you watch the trailer for Inconvenient Truth, Al introduces himself as "I was your next President of the United States." To me, he is clearly stating the fact as he and we see it.
I heard today Dodd will be throwing in his hat. A much better prospect then Lieberman (I'm on the Ned Lamont campaign), is he feasible?

Dodd's father (Tom Dodd) was a long-time Senator who was censured for unethical conduct. Chris spent his early career in Washington as something of a playboy; when Ted Kennedy was between marriages they kept bars open late together.

Most recently Chris has gained prominence as an architect of HAVA. After the 2004 election, the state of Connecticut moved to guarantee paper trails behind touch-screen voting machines. The legislature was strongly in favor, but Dodd imposed his will by saying this would interfere with implementation of HAVA and the goal of helping blind people vote. Even after the 2000 and 2004 election frauds, Dodd was more worried about blind people voting than about honest elections.

Recently John Kerry made a private comment to Dodd. "You know, Chris, there's a real problem with these machines." Dodd got angry and walked away. Questioned about the 2004 election fraud by a reporter, he replied, "I looked into that. There's nothing there."

You're preaching to the converted here, remember. Most of us who read this article and have posted comments do care, and care very much.

But, as I suggested in my post, very few people are at all concerned by matters of constitutional propriety or proper democratic procedure. I found this sad truth out in the aforementioned election in Australia in 1976.

If you can convince me that most people care about these kinds of issues, you'd be right. But my life experience observing electoral politics shows that they just don't.

But whether the issue is of much salience to the electorate in 2008 - well, what makes you think 2000 would matter that much to most voters? I find most people can't even remember what happened last year, let alone eight years ago.

Also, please recall that what happened to Nixon in 1973 didn't stop Americans putting another Republican back in the White House in 1980. Back in 1973-74. I honestly thought the U.S. wouldn't elect another Republican for 20 years or more. Really, people seem to have very short memories.

Now, since you've deliberately misrepresented me, let me try to make my point again. While most of us who read this article and have posted comments do care, and care very much, about what happened in 2000, it is most unlikely that most people do. As I suggested, very few people are at all concerned by matters of constitutional propriety or proper democratic procedure. So my view is this: instead of Gore talking about what happened in 2000, the right way to go would be for him to promise to reform the electoral machinery so that no elections could ever be stolen again. Most people will respond positively to such a platform. I am not sure how effective it would be to campaign on what happened eight years previously, in an age when most people don't seem to even be able to remember what happened last year.

I did not misrepresent you, and I do not appreciate your accusation that I would do anything of that sort deliberately. I didn't attack you personally. I merely challenged the merits of your post.

You wrote, "I think Gore is treading lightly because he knows the issue is old..." and continued, "I think he's being quite sensible here." Meaning, you agree with Gore the issue is "old." You wrote this. I didn't.

I challenged you on the word "old," which carries with it a suggestion of "tired" or "played out" when applied to a political issue. I asked how the issue of election integrity could be old when it hadn't been vetted through the media, in fact has been almost completely ignored, and had never been part of any candidate's platform, for any public office, since 2000.

Now you respond with a clarification of your own posting, meanwhile accusing me of deliberately misrepresenting you. The truth is, you were careless in your choice of words the first time.

Al Gore is one of the smartest people on this planet, for he knows that violent revolution in an already well-established country with a strong military only ever leads to one plutocracy replacing another.

The ONLY reason the American Revolution succeeded was because America was NOT well-established and it took 100 years for plutocracy to begin to take hold, and another 100 years for it to completely assume absolute dictatorial power (albeit with the trappings and appearance of a "democracy" and a "free" press.)

The answer is not revolution, for it will not work. The answer must be attrition. Everyone that is intelligent enough to realize the truth must remove themselves and their assets from America ASAP, obtain citizenship elswhere, and loudly proclaim and renounce American citizenship, so the fruits of their labor will no longer prop up this corrupt military-corporate plutocracy. There are infinitely superior countries to live in around the world where the number one industry is not exported death and endless war. One is extremely close by, and welcomes American assets.

If Americans who truly care about America left in droves, the plutocracy would collapse under its own miserable hateful weight.

Unfortunately, this is the only recourse left to Americans of good conscience and reasonable intelligence. Am I practicing what I preach? Absolutely.

Because by the time the next Diebold and ES&S determined election declares even more GOP victory, against all possible odds and against all exit polls, it will be far too late.

If Bush attacks Iran before September, that election itself MIGHT NEVER OCURR.

Leave. Now. The lie that America is the greatest place in the world to live firmly died in December of 2000, perhaps FOREVER. Leave America to the people willing to sacrifice their children for the lies of the plutocracy.

For XBJ: One problem with exiting the United States in droves is that other countries allow people in only under certain guidelines.

I looked into this. New Zealand wants people under age 55 (I'm 64), and also people with substantial sums to invest in a business there (or willing to bring their business along). Canada has age/job requirements that ruled me out. I stopped looking at that point.

For those stuck onshore, another way to "starve the beast" is to boycott companies that support the Bush administration and/or do business with it. I contributed to "Buy Blue," which identifies companies friendly to blue-state priorities. "Buy Blue" means "Don't Buy Red," of course...don't buy any national brands in the supermarket (you'll save a bundle with the store brands), buy gas only from Citgo or Gulf, don't eat at any national fast-food chain, don't bank at Citicorp, and don't use a phone company that gave private information to the NSA.

Boycotts often fail. But even a partially successful one sends a strong message; as someone who spent 28 years with Wall Street firms, I can testify to the damage a stock will suffer from a 10% drop in sales from one year to the next. That's easily doable if only a modest segment of the population swears off big companies' products, and from my own experience I know what awful public citizens many of these companies are. Coca-Cola and Exxon-Mobil might be the worst, but the full list would require more space than we have here.

Maybe Gore thought that in the end justice would ultimately be served up on this Bush freak lying silver spoon puppet of big oil and jews and even ragheads.

Look at what has happened lately. Bush has stepped on his own dick without Gore saying a word and has the lowest ratings anywhere as everyone on the planet knows what a major tyrant fuckup he is.

When Bush is impeached and jailed for spying and breaking 1000 laws singlehandedly and then lying about it plus after raising the debt double and allowing 50 million mexicans here illegally plus causing gas to double in price and all his other fuckups, then Gore will get his wish of retribution and deliverance.

Fact is most people cringe at the sight of this ugly chimphead and his ugly liars like Rice etc.

Beautys only skin deep but ugly goes to the bone. Studies show ugly people are more subject to criminal activity and lying stealing murderering etc.

Gore, too little too late.
The powers that be censor anything they want. Recently they forced Amazon and B&N to pull the book "America Deceived" by E.A. Blayre III from the shelves. Google Books has held out. Here's the last link (before it is pulled)

So if the Supreme Court had ruled in Gore's favor would that have been a stolen election also? Mr. crybaby started the whole court challange of the elections. Mr. Gore didn't get the results he wanted so now he cries like a boob. Pathetic! Re-count after re-count of the ballots in Florida shows he did not win Florida! If any re-count showed that he did it would be front page news. All the major networks went down and recounted the ballots. I can't recall them reporting that Gore won Florida. Mr Gore is a pathetic fool! Now he tries to tell us the sky is falling. He is the biggest fear-monger in world all history. I'am embarrased for him, he is dillusional and posibly has been affected by all the pot he once smoked but never inhaled.

For Mike Grant: I agree with everything you say about Bush, and I'd guess most others here would, also.

But election fraud isn't less fraudulent if the winner turns out to be successful and/or popular. It's still fraud. Robbing a bank and giving the proceeds to charity is still bank robbery, and stealing elections is robbery no matter what happens afterwards.

Even though Bush twice claimed a non-existent mandate, which is infuriating, I think it's vital to keep his conduct in office separate from the 2000 and 2004 elections. If we mix them together, it's easy for a Karl Rove to argue, "Those liberals are just sore losers who have it in for the president." Rove is practiced at converting a legal and ethical issue into a political one.

It's a tragedy that Democrats, as the minority party, have avoided the election fraud issue out of fear of appearing political (I think that's their reason...they haven't told us). They've kept the issues separate, all right, but only by ignoring election fraud, which guarantees its continuance.

Brad's phrase sums it up. "It's about right and wrong, not about right and left."

Come on people. We all saw what happened on the Senate floor when the members of the House came to confront the stolen election. They needed the backing of at least one senator, and not one came to their aid. And who was presiding over the hearing? President of the Senate, Al Gore.

He stood down when he should of stood-up and challenge the initial result's. When an election this close in Florida occurred it should of required an all County recount. Was that much to ask or demand?

2 more comments:
Go to www.loosechange911.com and buy the DVD "Louder Than Words" to get up to speed on what the Bush administration was doing up and around 9/11 upon the creation of his holiday and how it deviates from the FEMA version.

Al Gore may have had the electoral rug pulled from under him, but his campaign was WEAK as hell. It was as if he didn't really want it. And we must remember that pre-9/11 elections weren't the same. Now, Americans must save their nation and their rights any way they can, because they've elected a fascist (and I do not use that word lightly) administration TWICE. If you're all looking to 2008 to have Al Gore save your rights, please don't hold your collective breath. Democrats wouldn't recognize a political opportunity if it sat on their faces and took a big giant dump. They've been asleep at the switch for almost 5 years, now. It's now up to the People themselves. Good luck, and please stop your heathen government from destroying other nations because they happen to have oil. I don't know if God will ever forgive America for the invasion of Iraq, but I know I never will.

I want to back up what Paul Revere said. I lived in Memphis, TN for a long time. 99.99% of whites in that area are Republicans and 99.99% of Republicans in that area are racists. Its all about race. These people are Republicans because they fear that the Dems favor the blacks and might give them a fair shake. Funny thing is the redneck idiots are the ones who get shafted the most by Rethug policies. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. Man I hated Memphis.

For clarification sake when I was talking about racist whites in TN I was talking about the Western part of the State. I don't have much knowledge about the Nashville area but people tell me its not so bad over there.

Al Gore's daughter is married to one of the Schiff's. For those of you that may not be familiar with the name, his daughter, Karenna, married into a family that are one of the 12 founding families of the Federal Reserve.
Historically, the Bush family goes back 4 generations with it's cozy relations with the Reserve. Samuel Bush, father of Prescott, worked for Brown Bros. Harriman... i.e.: The Rockefellars et al.
Ford, Nixon, Reagan, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Bush's I & II all have been to the Bohemian Grove Club. I'm sure Al Gore is part of that global conspiritorial group as well. Nobody gets on the ballot on election day w/o being apart of the "program" (save for some remote independent).
According to Greg Palast, the '08 election has already been determined...that is, the "fix" is in. The 2 party system has become a purely entertainment based show for the millions of brainwashed minds that believe it.
Nader stated it best when he referred to the One Party System in DC as the "Corporate" party... controlled by the energy industry, defense industry and the central bank industry (IMF, WTO & World Bank)

I have to agree with others above about Tennessee as I have been saying that since VP Al Gore Jr.'s protests put our national election system on hold for a month.

There would be no need for arguments on the Florida 2000 election issues of butterfly ballots, hanging chads, dimpled chads, "re-vote", or even overvotes/undervotes if VP Al Gore Jr. had been able to win his own home state of Tennessee. That's eleven electoral votes, people. Simply one state of four or more electoral votes in Gore's column would have won it for him.

But how many of you Gore supporters would have expected him to lose his home state? If the people in his home state, whom he represented in the US House and Senate, didn't want him to be President, then what good is he for you to whine about? The people of Tennessee saw something in him that they started to dislike during his time as Vice President. So a majority of Tennesseeans deceided not to vote for him as President.

YES, Gore supporters, it IS a big deal. Please let me tell you why: Go back to 1984 when Pres.Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale. The people of Mondale's home state must have known that Reagan would win, but they voted for him anyway. Mondale's home state had the courage to vote for him even in the face of Reagan's huge victory. So Mondale received the electoral votes from that state..... and no others. Reagan defeated Mondale in the landslide victory 49 to 1 of the states.

Now that's pride for Mondale's state (Minnesota) to vote for him knowing that he would lose.

Tennessee had no such pride in their Vice President home boy.

So if you want to whine, I suggest you go to Tennessee and whine to the residents there who voted for Bush! And go to Arkansas (Clinton's state) while you're at it!

Whatever their reason for not voting for VP Al Gore Jr., the fact is that the majority of Tennessee voters did not. If the Gore Campaign had been more successful in his home state, he would have won the election.

I respect the posters here who live in Tennessee, but all of you don't agree on the cause of VP Al Gore Jr.'s loss there in 2000. It's interesting to me that many of you say that he has changed for the better since and you will give him another chance. But you won't give Sen.Kerry another chance? VP Al Gore Jr. created the bad perspective of American elections with his month-long recount and court cases. Sen.Kerry did no such thing.

COMMENT #114 [Permalink]...
Just the Masses of People
said on 5/24/2006 @ 11:02 am PT...

Albert Gore (OIL MAN) is no better than George W. Bush (OIL MAN) is no better than Bill Clinton is not better than George Herbert Bush is no better than Adolf Hitler.

For many people who see through the veil... some of us do not get caught up on those that the Establishment gets to manage World White Supremacy. Gore and Bush and Clinton had to assure those elites that they would carry the interests of these white men... that is why those who get to serve them as the United States President often come wealth.

If Albert Gore finally breaks from those elite ranks and gets himself into the streets and participates in that violent revolution he refers to.. then we would consider him serious... otherwise... it's spoiled apples from someone that the Establishment didn't pick to oppress the people.

We who fight against them.. would have fought him just as hard as their other lackey and ultimately.. fight beyond the distractions and onto the groups like the CFR, Rand Corporation, Bilderberg Group, the Boheimian Grove, Rhodes/Rothchild Secret Societies, and all other cliques of white supremacist interest.

I seriously think that that is a brilliant statement. Honestly. It has all the subjications of a "Great Quote". I always thought that Gore ... however boring... was very very intelligent. I get that from what we knew about him in how he performed as VP leading up to her personal run. No denying he works hard and is serious. I myself didn't vote for him... I call it possibly maybe the one time I messed up and made "being an independant" incorrect. I never really didn't believe in him. I just always had a fear that he was so much the same. Odd.... maybe I should have looked for intelligence to be the thing that set him appart. I just assumed that they all had that. =/ *sigh*

JOJ,
Cutting-and-pasting your comment to me on the next thread over to this one, you forgot to change the post number. #13 on this thread is RLM. My previous post on this thread is #114. I answered you on the next John Edwards thread.

BTW, you don't answer my post or counter what I typed. You just ask more silly questions.

Algore is just like my Uncle John from Omaha. He looks like a nice enough man from a distance but everyone avoids him because once he opens his uni-opinionated trap everyone is instantly bored to death. Sick of his clever attempts at his humor and those stories that he tells at ten words per minute!!! Run for your life, here comes Uncle John err Algore!! His wife is even more of a beast, big greedy monster that would sell out her father for trip money.

I'm sorry, I don't care how "connected" you say Al Gore was; one thing is for sure... the real traitors behind 9-11 would have never dared to try it on his watch.... he would have had them all hunted down and hung on the White House lawn for the treasonous murdering bastards they are. Of that you can be absolutely sure. That's exactly why they needed Bush & Crew on watch, reading "My Pet Goat" to kids in Florida and flying around the country from "one undisclosed location" to another.

And yes, I'm sure Gore got "the call" in 2000 that made him concede, just as Kerry got "the call" in 2004, threatening Teresa Heinz's children. It takes a lot to make men of this calibre back down, and while they can handle threats against their own lives, just a simple phone call from a stranger asking "How is [their child's name] doing?" would make any man back down. Few can trade the lives of their children to save the innocent lives of hundreds of thousands of others'.

Gary #35. Great suggestion to read "The Wilderness Campaign" from the New Yorker. While we're all out here guessing what goes on in that head of his, this article lays it out subtly and candidly.

And the "Al Gore" song that he appears on just nails it ln the head. I'd heard this song once before on NPR, but now I know where to find it on iTunes.
May even buy the whole Monkey Bowl CD now that I've checked out a few more tracks.
Whoulda thought: Al Gore-alternative rock star!
That'll look good on his 2008 resume! The CD is at infinitycat.com

I actually have The Monkey Bowl CD that Remnick quotes from in the New Yorker piece. (#120, 35, 41)
It'g a great adult pop record with some seriously biting lyrics about love, life and the state of the union.
I was in the audience for a taping of The Daily Show last month and they used the Monkey Bowl CD to warm up the sudience!
I especially like "Stupid Man Things" .
But the best for me is when the President-elect chimes in on the end of the song that bears his name, "Al Gore". Words of wisdom tempered with humor from an ultra thoughtful and intelligent man.

I have read the last two days of this blog in one sitting. I just love thinking Americans. And I suppose I may have the opportunity to meet some of you face to face when we find ourselves in the "detention centers". It is coming my friends. There will be no effective revolution, violent or non-violent. History is a repeater. History is a repeater. We have stood here low these 6 years and allowed our robber barons and our Hitler to do their work. And I must say, it's been some mighty fine work. Our constitution is in shreds and the only leader in Washington even giving it lip service is Russ Feingold out of Wisconsin. No, they all know what's about to come down and none want to take it on. The American people least of all. I talk to people daily and 98% fall into two catergories: So scared they will only believe George is something close to the Messiah, and 2nd so scared they don't want to talk about it or listen to me talk about it. And this is the public we think might successfully run a revolution? Do you think if there was even a chance that he and company would ever have to face the music, King George and company would be acting this way? No! Now we wait for our next event where they declare martial law. I'm guessing it will be before November. Then, the depression. Then, the next world war. I think I have that in the right order. Timing is negotiable probably based on how sewed up the mid term election fraud is.

The Supreme Court DOES NOT EVEN HAVE jurisdiction over deciding or stopping State Elections, so the point is that it was hardly a "Supreme Court decision", it was a Supreme Court pretention. Even if it was 9-0 for Bush, they still would be wrong wrong wrong.

It was cloaked to look all legal-like that way, like so much of "law" in the U.S., when 2000 was simply partisan organized crime of the Bushes.

I'm white, and originally from Tennessee ( really hate going back just for social/cultural issues, though I miss the Smoky Mountains...). I would agree with Paul Revere. I expect most of the people commenting are white? One's experience of Tennessee, like most places in America, is conditioned by race and class.

First, I could tell you very sad horror stories, shocking even to jaded me, from ALL OVER TN related to me by a well educated black man known to my father, on various near lynch situations he experiened well into the early 1970s by good ol boy culture. Tennesee is very "urban white flight" suburban sprawl. The white suburbanites don't really represent or know what is going on with the American Apartheid system. Look up a book by that name if you want...

On the other hand, others who disagree are right as well. I do know some really full hearted people--the best people I have met, black or white--who have true understandings still of what hospitality and mutual kindness means. However, in my opinion, that culture is nearing death in this generation--without being perpetuated--by the national homogenization of the South that started with the "Sunbelt" moves 30 years ago.

Historically, Tennessee is odd in several senses.

1. TN is not "Deep South." I was amused to even find this hot contestation against such self-identification in my mom's cook books on Southern cuisine of TN! Second, who remembers that famous quote from William Faulkner, that the "Deep South only started at the Peabody Hotel" (in Memphis.)

2. TN has three different ecological zones that have drastically different cultural, social and political alliances and identities. The western tennesee cotton plantations areas, the central tennessee 'basin' areas of Nashville and moving north, and the eastern Appalacian areas--where I am from, and frankly some of the most beautifully green places that I have seen despite being all over this country. If you can stand to run the gauntlet of the shopper hell of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, get into the Smoky Mountains..

3. The cities are a different story, with very different histories: Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville are genearlly common in that they are white racist and have huge black ghetto urban decay areas. However, there are many differences here. Knoxville was a major KKK core city in TN, and still has an evil lurking quality to me, it was the first capital, that was jettisoned when organized criminal land speculations by the Governor there threw him in jail and they wanted to get away from him. Knoxville is a huge backwater, and the longest "strip mall" organized town you will ever see from the dead downtown areas for dozens of miles and miles down Kingston Pike; HUGE windowless Masonic temples all over the downtown, Christmas decorations left up all year round in vacated buildings, give a very deserted feel; For Memphis history--learn about Crump. That's all you have to know to get an insight into western TN politics. However, on Memphis, it is important to remember that Memphis is its own planet stuck in a cultural time lock perpetually repeating something around 1950-1959, while the built infrastructure changes. On Nashville, a very commercial city, different than the others, and astoundingly HUGE now. Chattanooga: lots of old city-loyal elite family wealth there. One of the few urban industrial core areas of the South due to railroads and coking coal deposits found there. The rail spike came from Cincinatti, which explains why that "northern" city is really southern like historically in the U.S. Chattanooga supposedly has more upper class preperatory schools per capita than any other city int the U.S., with mainlines directly into the Ivy League in New England. Girls Prepatory School. McCallie. etc., Chattanooga several years ago made the top ten for Utne Reader's most progressive cities in the U.S., which ain't saying much about the U.S., folks. The first Coca-Cola bottler plant in the world was in Chattanooga. Lots of old money there. Electric buses downtown. Huge increasingly futuristic postmodern cityscape. As much a different visual planet as Memphis is, and vasty different from the rest of the state since it was a Northern connected industrial outcrop. The first nuclear core in the world was created in Chattanooga steel foundries. Was the most polluted city in the U.SA in 1970, and not bizarrely one of the "greenest". However, all four cities are really racist despite different cultures in their white rich elites: only some are more patrician about it than others (like Chattanooga) and others more podunk about it (like Knoxville).

However much current or ex-Tennesseans may think "come on, there is a silver lining"--there is still a huge dark storm cloud that Paul Revere above has seen that is very real.

4. TN did not join the Confederacy like the Deep Southern States immediately. It was the last to do so, and it was the first one back in the Union. TN only did so join the Confederacy after the North started mobilizing its troops to cross into it that way.

5. The postponement on decisions was there was a "civil war within the civil war" for control of Tennessee on seceding or keeping to the Union like closer ecological-cultural ally Kentucky did. The Eastern Appalacian areas, not cotton plantations, more autonomous minded, (like all Appalacian bits of all southern states on the east coast), and the core of the state, was not in sync politically with the rich cotton plantation run Nashville government that seceeded for its western TN interests. TN was not all cotton plantations, except in the Western part of the state. Thus, there was pretty much a guerilla war within TN among pro-Union and Confederate TN gruops due to the secession that was seen favoring only Western TN. That is why the Appalacian areas allied with the Republicans (the "original Republicans," you know the anti-slavery abolitionists), while the western state was the "Democratic" (white supremacy culture) party. The white supremacist Democratic party south really is a thing of the past now, all these elites gone over to a more nationalized white supremacist party (now the Republican party, in a twist of fate), so did the white supremacism of the southern Democratic party really die, or did it just nationalize its racism into the Republican party instead, like in groups led by the New Hampshire/TX/FL Bushes? Anyway...

I could go on though I see little point (about Memphis or Nashville urban politics). For a book that really captures the huge variety in "Old South" along these lines well, find V. O. Key's Southern Politics, published I think in 1959 right on the crux of change.

However, to be "fair," racism is a national issue in the United States.

And to be unfair and pick on other areas, the most sadly polarized area I have seen in the south was the capital of Georgia, Atlanta, though it got worse toward the small cities of coastal Georgia particularly Savannah--though up through the Virginia coast.

I've often mused about the poetic justice that only a black BLIND man (Ray Charles) could sing so happily about "Georgia, on my mind."

Thank you for the history lesson on Tennessee. I will save this for future reference.

Just so some aren't offended, I didn't mean to indicate that the entire population/state of TN is racist and such, just that, overall, the state is and I truly believe that the situation of Al Gore having a Black campaign manager didn't sit too well with many Tennessee residents.

While traveling around Tennessee, my wife and I managed to get down to the motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. We walked through the ghetto areas to the Lorraine Motel. We were two white people alone in an all Black area, but we felt okay. There was a certain peaceful atmosphere about the streets (almost too peaceful). I noticed the gazes from old Black men staring at us through the windows of run down houses. Eerie.

When we got to the Lorraine Motel it was like we were in a time warp. There was the motel, practically in its original condition. Truly historic. Then we visited the National Civil Rights Museum (next to the motel). There were large groups of Black schoolchildren on field trips to visit the history museum.

After exiting the museum, we saw several groups of Black children waiting outside. But what we witnessed then only added to the facts about Tennessee. Two white men were driving their Harley motorcycle and beat up car back and forth in front of the groups of children, making lots of noise and trying to intimidate the groups. Of course, they had their mullet hair and ratty clothes. Yep, it was a scene I will never forget.

My ex-wife and I are totally opposite politically and religiously. I am a Liberal and anti-war activist, she's a evangelical and pro-Bushite (she told me later that she believes God made him Prez). She contacted me just before the 2004 Election and told me that she had lived in Tennessee for several years (1999-2002) and helped work on the Bush-Cheney campaign. That was a bit shocking to me, but now I understand. She told me that there is no racism in Tennessee. Yeah, right. Naive, stupid woman. Glad I am not married to her anymore. Anyway, I read her the riot act and we will probably never speak to each other until we die. My tolerance for stupidity, racism, bigotry, religious fundamentalism, and war has come to an end. If I offend anyone, good. You deserve it.

Al Gore as Prez would have saved lives and probably the planet. Period.

He learned under Pres.Clinton who refused to send extra troops into Somolia and denied the troops on station the use of tanks and armored vehicles. 19 Army Rangers were killed as a result of a lack of heavy support.

He claimed "no controlling legal authority" to check on his illegal fund-raising calls from the White House.....

He claimed that during investigation by the FBI that he went to the bathroom a lot because he was drinking too much iced tea, so he missed some of the discussions....

Your post gave me a good laugh! Thanks, I needed that.

Remember this?

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

One thing he seems to have honed during his hiatus from politics is his sense of humor.
"...When asked at his press conference how he should be addressed, he replied "Your Adequacy." "
I like that.
I also love the joke that some have described as 'stale' because he's said it so often...
"...You win some...you lose some...and then there's that little known third category..."

And speaking of adequacy...it's hard to imagine anyone less adequate to the job of POTUS than our georgie. Whatever one's opinion of Clinton, I realized as I was listening to a speech of his not too long ago what a pleasure it is to hear him speak.
Gore isn't blessed with Clinton's easy charm & effortless speaking skills, but his sincerity, his passion & his intellect are light years ahead of gwb.

"What comes around, goes around, as they say. We call it karma - if you steal, lie, cheat, and bribe, you are a criminal. Criminals tend to get their dues because of universal justice. George Bush’s justice so far has been that he is a failed leader – the worst president ever. But criminals who get away with their crimes tend to gain hubris which leads them to bigger crimes, like torture, illegal war and indiscriminate death. We believe that karma is not done with George Bush."

I hope karma has more in store for Bush...I bet Al Gore pees his pants in excitement every time Bush gets in trouble... :satisfied: